Friday, February 17, 2006

My agency is run by a couple of guys who aren’t from this country. I just found out that, no, we’re not getting Monday off. They looked at me like I was crazy.

“We don’t take President’s Day off. What the fuck is President’s Day?”

It’s time to talk about assimilation. I lived in Europe for nine months. And when I was there, I fucking ASSIMILATED. Three months in Berlin. People aren’t funny here? Ok, I can be serious for three months. (Even though it’s fucking killing me to keep a straight face when you guys speak.) I even spent my spare time learning how to conjugate your fucking goddamned weird ass verbs in your goddamned weird ass language just so I could order my milchkaffe without sounding like a stupid American.

Three months in Amsterdam. I assimilated. No problem.

Three months in London. I ate their fucking food. I drug my happy Miamian ass out of the beautiful sun and sat under their grey skies for three months. Did I complain? Never. In fact I think I called London “cool,” on a few occasions. And oh, that’s right. I even contemplated suffering through their ridiculous placement system just so I could get an advertising job there. (If you don’t know how they hire juniors there, it’s too long of an explanation for this entry. But, trust me, it’s a pain in the ass.)

So now you’re here in my country. Now I’m not “proud to be an American.” I don’t drink Budweiser and I don’t like fireworks. But if you want to run an agency here, you better fucking observe Presidents Day. And we celebrate it by sleeping the fuck in. Yea! Go Lincoln. Now hit the goddamned snooze button before I have to get out of this bed and stuff goddamn acid under your goddamn fingernails.

Learn it. And just like fish n chips, you may find it’s not all that bad.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

It’s late. I’m still at the office. Everyone else has left. And all I can think about is scotch. And the sweet sweet tinkling noise the ice makes as I swirl it around in my glass. And its sweet sweet feel as it courses down to my belly, the alcohol carving out tiny caverns inside my throat. Three glasses and I can finally wake up from this headline nightmare, having forgotten about advertising completely. Six and I’ll be scrawling scripted nonsense onto bar naps with the pen the bartender lent me. Eight and I’ll be telling everyone to fuck off and I hate them all. I hate this city. I hate my life. And you can all just fucking die. And then, thanks to the sweet sweet mind erasing benefits of sweet sweet scotch, I won’t remember a damn thing.

Friday, February 10, 2006

I read recently that the true artist never rushes to complete his work. Rather he relishes in the uncertainty of the project and waits for something truly original to develop.

Fuck that. I need a montage.

Just because I want to write a book, doesn’t mean I want to actually write it. I just want to push play and have the music take over. I want the pain and brain-tugging agony of writing to be cut down to three second edits. And the glory of completion to be paraded in an explosion of guitar licks, drum solos and pyrotechnics.

I’m even ready to throw my music tastes out the window. I know damn well that impossible goals aren’t accomplished during a drum n’ bass set. I need an ass kicking montage that fucking breaks the cheese meter. Maybe some Van Halen “Right Now.” We can even go über cliché and throw a little slow-mo Chariots of Fire in the final scene. Who needs the “real world” with it’s “real work,” when you can have flashy editing and dramatic guitar licks? C’mon universe. Montage me!

We open in my office. We see me slump down in my chair, staring at a fresh brief. Cut to later. The clock has advanced. There are generic piles of paper surrounding me. I’m using a laptop, not a typewriter. But who cares about logic? This is a montage. It’s just gotta LOOK like work is being accomplished.

And of course I’ll intersperse the work scenes with shots of gratuitous jogging. Cause a montage isn’t complete without an unrelated attempt at getting buns of steel.

Luke Sullivan said in, “Hey Whipple” that .000000001% of a ad man’s time is spent accepting awards and the rest is spent buried in work. Fuck that. Cut to the Clios. Hotel banquet hall. Slow motion.

“And the lifetime achievement award goes to…”

Whoooooo? Meeeeee?

As I reach the podium to accept my award, my book agent comes running up the stairs. The publisher has put my novel to press. From the other side enter one very oversized check carried by well-oiled beefcake men. (Why not?) The confetti drops, the balloons are released. I’ve won the lottery. The slow-mo high fiving commences. We see everyone leap from their chair and run. Run out of the banquet hall. Run to the pool. Run to the bar. We’re cheering. We’re bouncing around like weightless astronauts. We’re chugging tequila like Mexicans with a paycheck. And I’ve achieved all this in the course of an edited rock song. Then the music fades, just in time for me to say something clever. "And that," (lots of pointing) "is how an ad gets done." Everyone laughs. Anyone can be hilarious. All it takes is montage power.

Now it’s time for a drug-fueled adventure in Miami. And get your montage hands off my irresponsible two weeks of reckless abandon. I want to experience every tweeked moment of it.

Unless, at any time I should vomit. In which case, you can just edit that out.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

How appropriate. I am now a shot. My dear bartender friend in Miami has been threatening to name a shot after me, and he finally developed the recipe.

1 part chambord1 part Godiva white chocolate liqueur1 part Myers Rum

Layer them in that order and serve.

I was hoping that a shot made in my honor would be a little stronger, but apparently the recipe of straight tequila was already taken. So next time you’re at a bar, order la Concha Libre. And if the bartender makes a face of confusion, kindly enlighten him with the recipe.

Monday, February 06, 2006

I woke up this morning feeling like shit. “that’s weird,” I thought. “it can’t be a hangover. I only drank two beers last night.” And then I realized, it wasn’t from drinking. It was the remaining pain left over from having to watch a few of the Superbowl spots last night.

First of all, I have a proposition. We need to create a P. Diddy sniper. Any time any copywriter, AE, Account Planner, Art Director, CD, client, traffic guy, or janitor mentions that P. Diddy should be used for an ad, they would slump over, having been shot on site. The surviving co-workers would then be overwhelmingly horrified, and always associate that feeling with an ad containing P. Diddy. Kind of like how I felt when I saw the Diet Pepsi ad in the first place.

And then we have Crispin.

Oh I get it, we’ll make a burger out of ladies. Heheheh. And then we’ll make them all jump on top of each other. Hehehe. Get it? And then Brooke Burke will top them all. Cause remember? You know, we did that thing with her and the king in the tabloids and that was so cool and gotta go, cause I gotta jerk off to myself in the mirror again. Oooo, I wonder what all those girls are doing under Brooke’s bun. Hehehe, hehehe, hehehe. I love myself.

At least Cripsin isn’t over promising. BK can guarantee that their fucking cheep nasty ass burgers are better than their advertising.

Then you watch the Sierra Mist ads. Haha. Funny. Seriously, no sarcasm. And then we have (insert super ad voice) the Gillet soooper 18 blade shaver with the Sooperest advertising ever. How do these campaigns come out of the same agency? Yeah, BBDO, why don’t you hire some MORE people. So that your agency becomes even more of an inconsistent clusterfuck. (And if you decide to, I’ll take a job, thanks. I need health insurance.)

Go daddy.com. Barf.

There were a few good ones, but if I talked about what didn’t suck, than this wouldn’t be my blog, now would it?

“Big words.” You’re thinking. Big words from someone whose freelance gig is almost up and will soon be looking for another job. Big words from the mouth that’s about to be kissing the asses’ of the same CDs who approved these ads. Big words from someone who might never get another job because a few CDs saw her blog and refused to hire her. Well, I guess if that happens, I could always find a new career.